


The Crow and the City

by d0ct0rd0ct0r



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crossdressing, Crossover, Drabbles, Drug Addiction, Gen, Hillcrow, Metavengers, Multi, Other, writing challenge, writing prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-08
Updated: 2012-08-11
Packaged: 2017-11-11 16:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d0ct0rd0ct0r/pseuds/d0ct0rd0ct0r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A potentially-mad doctor, sneaking between the cracks of time and space in a phone booth, pretends to be someone he is not while swearing against outright violence.<br/>Unfortunately, <i>that</i> Doctor is not in today. But if you would like a consultation, please contact Dr. Jonathan Crane. He does the same thing, except he doesn't have a conscience. </p><p>30 prompted drabbles for the Metavengers RP group. </p><p>WARNING: These drabbles mix the Marvel and DC (film) universes! Those faint of heart should not proceed!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginning (Hillcrow Begins)

  


Everything has a beginning. Be it parents, playground, or paradoxes, one has to come from somewhere.  
For a certain doctor in ruins, he came from all three. Gotham was cold at the hour, and as much warmth as a ragged jacket and straw-stuffed sleeves could hold, there was still a bitter chill invading his skin and bones. It made the hairs at the back of his neck stand up, his glasses nearly frost over, and the now-empty brittle bottle in his pocket to shatter. Though there was a certain warmth--a strength, really, warming his mind--from the adrenaline rush, it wasn't enough. Not to mention, everywhere he looked, there seemed to be a rush of fabric against the moon. He wasn't about to be caught by that ignorant young Nightwing.  
Jonathan "Scarecrow" Crane may have been a lunatic, but he was no idiot.  
For all of its modern architecture and facade, Gotham was still an old city. It showed on the cracked streets and the occasional phone booth. The feeling of being watched followed him, over his shoulder and just out of his peripheral vision. That weight, however, disappeared as he entered the nearest phone booth.  
 _Ironic,_ he thought, _long-lost heroes were supposed to emerge from these._ He smiled at the thought and leaned against the side of the box, skin chilling at the contact with the cold wood and glass. Crane looked up at the boxy ceiling, pulling off his old glasses. _Isn't it dark, now?_  
There was a period of silence before he took a cursory glance at the door. Weighing the options--someone finding a wanted criminal or running from the night--he figured he might as well head back to the one safe place he had. He supposed he ought to call forward, so he deposited his two remaining quarters into the machine. With a frost-bitten hand, he punched a telephone number into the phone and let it ring.  
"Quinn?" he asked, voice raspy from the cold. "You there?"  
"I'm sorry," a woman--certainly not Harley--answered from the other end of the line. "I think you have the wrong number. My name is Jane Foster..."  
Jonathan slammed the phone against the receiver and hit the side of the box, knocking the door open.  
The sliver of sidewalk visible from the cracked door was most certainly _not_ Gotham. The streets were too well-kept. The stale air entering the cold phone booth was too warm. Blinking, he stepped through the door and into an impossible world. There was a certain element that felt almost like Gotham--but the place was far too different.  
 _I just took it, I can't be hallucinating, I'm not withdrawing,_ he reasoned, _I'm not psychotic._  
But there it was. A late-night city, some building blazing and burning bright, people walking past Jonathan without even noticing the well-feared villain.  
"I'm hallucinating," he muttered as he pulled off his glasses. He wiped the lenses against his jacket and slipped them back on.  
A city that was not Gotham still stood before him.  
Crane took a step back into the phone booth, feeling his pulse rise from the startling image. He slammed the door shut and leaned against the wall across from it, breathing in and out. Cautiously, he tried opening the door again. This time, freezing Gotham stood before him. _Curiosity killed the cat._ Closed. Opened. Not Gotham. _And satisfaction brought it back._  
The door opened to Gotham again, and Crane slipped into the pocket of night. He had to collect his toxin ~~( _his addiction_ )~~ before he could take any steps into the Other city.  
He smiled for the first time in months, cracking the frost, as the plan started to cook in his head.


	2. Accusation (The Crow and the Snake)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-first confrontation. Loki confronts "Agent Hill" in the laboratory. Crane gasses Loki, who attacks in surprise.

Crane rested his forehead on the cool surface of the mirror. He was hot, feverish. His shaking hands clamped around the edge of the sink, knuckles white. Though sentence fragments flew through his head at dangerous speeds, coherent thoughts were slow to come. Crane slammed his head against the mirror, shattering it. His headache pounded with the blood rushing to his injury, trying to stop the bleeding. His knee--frozen, broken, _never going to recover_ \--buckled and sent him to the floor.

Cool, cool tile. Jonathan closed his eyes and leaned against the cupboard door, the startled rattling of vials and syringes overshadowing his heartbeat.

He did not have the _time_ to play it cool. His plans would have to accelerate. If he was forced to use more of his dangerously small collection of his toxin ~~( _his drug_ )~~, he wouldn't last long enough.

Loki, Loki, Loki, Loki. That snake. Couldn't take "no" for an answer. Couldn't accept the carefully-constructed lies. They were solely transparent to each other--while Crane could see through Loki's shields, his _God-like_ powers, Loki could see through his deception.

It was a shame. They could have worked together. Could have been _brilliant_ together, taken the whole of two universes by storm: mischief and fear. They could be terror _incarnate_. A lunatic of a god and the god of lunatics.

Bracing himself on his fists, Crane got to his feet. He tended to the only self-inflicted wound on his body (the knife wounds were wrapped, he already had a brace for his thawing knee, he was in comfortable pajamas and all was well on the outside _but not inside his head never inside his head he didn't have the ~~drug~~ toxin to keep him calm he was slipping, slipping, everything was slipping away..._ ).

His tongue was felt and his limbs were lead. The Scarecrow with no mind fell into a bed (he hesitated to call it a bed; it was hard, cold, military, how did Hill get a wink of sleep _it was worse than Arkham and he knew Arkham_ ) that was not his own. There would be time to deal with Loki later. Time to cover his tracks, to pin a "leak" of the toxin on Loki (he was the accomplice to a criminal who didn't yet exist), to hide him away and expose his fears. Nothing could touch Crane. _Nothing._

Not the Bat, not the Snake, and certainly not the Avengers.

Shaking and shivering and breaking into sweats and curling into a ball, Jonathan Crane fell into an uneasy sleep.

He dreamt of nothing, not even Loki, nothing but the darkness of an emptied mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It doesn't make so much sense without the background, but that may be supplied later. I own nothing.


	3. Restless ("Miles to Go")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I've got a really bad disease  
> It's got me begging on my hands and knees  
> So take me to emergency   
> 'Cause something seems to be missing."  
> ("Restless Heart Syndrome" by Green Day)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Withdrawal and hallucinations follow.

  


Sleep was impossible without the drug. A rocking ship of a bed became fitful dreams--insomnia at its finest as he awoke after two hours. Glass shards moved through his circulatory system instead of blood, letting the blood just leak through his pores. He was covered in a cold sweat, damp hair sticking to his forehead and pillow. In the vacant spot where contacts often were, his eyes were dry and he could swear they were peeling off.   
Oh, Lord, and he had so very much planned. It would all fall to the wayside, go to waste, if he couldn't collect himself enough to--   
 _There was a flickering shadow by the door, black as tar, and it moved across the wall and behind Jonathan and he could hear its voice and the sickness of the skin behind the shadow and oh God it had come for him oh God oh God--_  
His mouth was dry like sandpaper. His eyes burned and stung. Ashes ~~( _to ashes and dust to dust_ )~~ coated his mouth and skin. Sweat crept from his hairline down his back, gluing him down. The world was aflame before him, dark shadows of fire rising into the sky. (Not) his bed rocked underneath him, the floor creaking and crumbling. Reality evaded him as he tried to break free from the grasp of hallucinations. He was falling apart.   
Crane wrestled against the constraints of sticky, starched sheets. He broke free and fell to the floor with a crash, crawling toward the cool bathroom tile. The fire _could_ be doused, he _could_ make it (if he really tried), and--  
But there it was. The shadow behind his bed had followed him, slinking through the dark like it was made from liquid night. Its mouth opened, flaming, fire flickering onto the floor. Crane pushed himself up with sore arms, ran toward the shower-- _it couldn't get through the glass he wouldn't let it_ \--and locked himself inside.   
The shadow rose toward the ceiling, engulfing Crane in its darkness. If not for the cracks in his throat ( _he was coughing blood asphyxiating on the smoke brain suffocating straw burning what was he going to do he couldn't become just a pile of ashes_ ), Jonathan would have screamed right then and there.   
Instead, he yanked on a lever and turned the shower on. Biting cold water streamed from the head, dousing Crane and washing away ashes and sweat.   
He opened his eyes to look through the water.   
The Bat was gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops I accidentally left my fucked up switch on.


	4. Snowflake ("Death by Exile")

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TDKR spoilers follow! (well, more of them than usual)

Snowflakes were patterns of ice frozen into particular patterns. No more, no less. To Jonathan Crane, they were nothing if not an annoyance--clouding his vision, melting in his hair, canceling appointments, or making stays in Arkham's cellar rooms (total solitary confinement, for those so dangerous to ~~themselves and~~ others like Crane) brutal. If Dr. Crane greatly preferred studying the individual crystalized fractals of others' minds. He enjoyed breaking them into nothing more than shattered ice on the sidewalk.   
Still, he could grudgingly appreciate the individuality of snowflakes. Like human minds were unique, shaped by extenuating circumstances, snowflakes' shapes were different based on their own origins. Indeed, he had to admit that the similarities between his chosen profession and that of frozen drops of rain had a, a tenuous simplicity. Fractals. Everything resembled itself from the unique pattern of galaxies in the universe to the stars held inside those galaxies, from the origins of the plants orbiting those stars to the life created from those origins, from the shape of a human's mind to the patterns of water frozen in the atmosphere.   
And, despite his bitter hatred of the cold (not that heat was any better), Crane could not help but smile as he saw snowflakes nesting in the hair and clothing of Gotham's finest idiots. Yes, he quite enjoyed the way that it compounded into ice beneath the feet of the damned as they marched over water roaring and ready to claim them. The best was watching one Commissioner Gordon crossing that river. Jonathan felt that he could see every last flake falling from the sky, shattering and melting on impact just as the dreams of Gotham's citizens had--   
But then there was fire (which Jonathan possibly hated _more_ than ice, for there was no simplicity in the way that it tore everything apart indiscriminately, as opposed to the slow and careful torture of freezing ice), and the last men on the ice cheered. Jonathan looked around, trying to find the blast and what it had done (why weren't they falling into melting cracking breaking ice?).   
"Up there, Doc," one of the Jury said.   
Jonathan Crane looked up at the sigil burning on the bridge that connected Gotham to the rest of the world. Real, genuine fear (not the kind from his hallucinations, not the bare adrenaline rush he felt with his drug) coursed through his veins. He wasn't sure whether he was glad or angry.   
But his emotions were no matter. Crane rolled his shoulders, cracking the straw within his jacket, and looked up at the unmistakeable signal.   
 _The Bat was back._


	5. Haze ("I Don't Need No Drugs To Calm Me")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " _I don't need no arms around me  
>  and I don't need no drugs to calm me  
> I have seen the writing on the Wall  
> Don't think I need anything at all..._"  
> ("Another Brick in the Wall, pt. III" by Pink Floyd)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for blood and self-injury.

_Champagne in his stomach.  
Bubbles rising to the surface, surprise, it's laughter.  
He laughs and laughs and laughs at the face in the mirror.  
Make up. Sharp cheekbones. Outlined (brown) eyes. Combed hair (_it's still too dark and still too messy and damnit Crane what happened to perfectionism? _).  
He blinks at the mirror, cracked where he hit it nights ago, and smiles to himself. This is nothing like who he really is. It's a good escape. He grabs the sides of the counter and braces himself so that his head is touching the mirror. Old glass shards find their original places with the scars in his hair, but he doesn't mind. The pain makes him feel so _alive. _  
The withdrawal... not so much.  
Crane feels the shadow on his back, in the mirror, sees right through it. He grips the rough mask under his rough hands and spins around. "I can see you, idiot!" he screams into the abyss before him. The velvet darkness wraps around him, gagging him and binding him. "You can't frighten the god of _fear _!"  
Old words echo around the tile, bouncing off of the mirror and into Crane's head _~~(it was all already in his mind anyway but he wouldn't admit that the hallucinations were getting worse and worse more and more real no they were just illusions illusions ILLUSIONS FROM THE GODDAMNED SNAKE)~~ _. "I am a_ God _," the voice hisses.  
Jonathan strikes out at the voice, spinning around to find it, to find _him. _"You aren't the Bat, you don't know me." He's sweating now, the darkness hot and heavy on his skin. The sweat falls in his eyes like blood and tears, blinding him. "You have no power over me, Laufeyson!" He strikes again, fist colliding with something. Crane can feel it shatter--bones, skin, there's even blood slick and warm on his hand. "Not so cold-blooded after all, are you?"  
The voice is silent. Crane thinks he's won. He keeps punching at the cold, cold Snake, feeling the crunch of his bones beneath cracking scales. He's breathing heavily, in and out, his lungs worked to their limit.  
He collapses on the ground, in the dim cool light of ~~Agent Hill's~~ his bathroom, glass shards surrounding him. It is his own blood on his hands and arms and face. There is no Snake, there never was.  
Crane falls to the ground, dizzy. The ceiling spins. He can see those green, green eyes--_  
And he woke with a start. He lay in the hard cold military bed again. His hands were cool and wet, covered in blood, but he could not feel glass digging into his skin. His leg ached from the frozen knee down. Finally, finally, he had gotten rest. He could breathe once more, and he did like he was a man who had drowned, sitting up. The bloody haze around his head dissipated as he looked around the spacious room.  
Jonathan pushed the white sheets off of his sweaty body. They were tastefully decorated with a rose petal design, red leaves strewn across the bed.  
Oh. Wait. That was new.  
He turned on the light and saw how new the design truly was--it was wet and slick, like fresh paint. Crane swung his aching legs over the side of the bed, resting his bloody hands on the edge of the mattress. His legs were cool, too, like they were covered in water. Sticky as the moved from under the covers.  
Covered in blood. That explained things.  
His right calf, from the thawing ice over his knee down, was covered in deep scratches. They oozed blood, thick and slow. The ice itself was covered in scratch marks and dried blood.  
That was painful.  
Damned, damned Snake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I skipped number four, Snowflake (for now). I'll finish it eventually.

**Author's Note:**

> Oops I crossed the streams. 
> 
> These are 30 drabbles based on one-word prompts for the group RP (Metavengers) of which I am a part. I'm Scarecrow pretending to be Maria Hill (...this thing started out as a humorous thing and then BAM SERIOUS). 
> 
> Don't own anything~~


End file.
